Monthly archives for September, 2009

The Regional Response Teams play an invaluable role by assisting Alcor in providing localized response support for their fellow cryonicists. Whether an immediate response is needed due to a member’s clinical death or assistance is needed in the event of a medical standby, team members can rightfully feel that they are helping people whose lives can no longer be maintained by current medical practices.

We encourage Alcor members and volunteers who are interested in being part of a response team to attend local training sessions. Those who want to learn more about what would happen in the event of a stabilization and transport, or just want to meet and interact with other local members, are also encouraged to attend. Upcoming meetings are as follows:

Scottsdale, AZ: On Sunday, September 27, 2009, Alcor will hold a training session for the Arizona Response Team. This will be held at Alcor Central in Scottsdale, AZ from 10:00 am until 3:00 pm.

San Jose, CA: The Northern California Response Team training has been scheduled for Saturday, October 10th and Sunday, October 11th. The hosting team leader will be Tim Freeman, however a location has yet to be determined.

Please get the word out to anyone that may be interested so that we will have strong regional teams!

To RSVP to the training sessions, please contact Aaron Drake at aaron@alcor.org or Regina Pancake at regina

On Saturday, September 12, 2009, Alcor held its Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors. The meeting was attended in person by all directors. In addition to the public Annual Meeting, the directors took the opportunity to spend about nine hours on Saturday and another four hours on Sunday holding a private Strategic Meeting with management.
Director and officer elections were held at the Annual Meeting.

Phoenix, AZ–August 9, 2009
Alcor was contacted by a member who informed us that his wife, also an Alcor member, had become gravely ill and they were traveling to Mexico for specialized treatments, in an attempt to extend her life. In the event that their efforts became futile, they intended to return to the United States and fly directly to Scottsdale to be near Alcor for the remaining days of her life.

Alcor’s deployment committee kept in close contact with the family along with her medical providers in the U.S. and abroad. Her physicians were aware of her cryopreservation directives and eventually determined that her time would be better spent getting closer to Alcor rather than continuing treatment and risk potential delays while crossing the U.S. border, after clinical death.

The family arrived in Scottsdale by Air Ambulance while Alcor facilitated her direct admittance into a cryonic’s friendly hospice provider in the Phoenix valley.

St. Louis, MO–July 25, 2009
Alcor received notice from an extended care facility that one of our members was experiencing a significant decline in health and therefore the family was in the process of changing the patient to hospice care. Alcor’s deployment committee was actively involved in monitoring the situation when it was decided to have an Alcor representative at the patient’s bedside to better determine when to initiate a full team response. Aaron Drake traveled to St. Louis to interact with the patient, family and medical staff.

Throughout the course of the seven days on location, we continually ramped up the level of readiness as the patient’s condition worsened. Initially, the full team supply kit was shipped and pre-positioned. Then, two Suspended Animation, Inc. (SA) team members drove the SA response vehicle from Florida to St. Louis. And finally, we requested a deployment from Catherine Baldwin for the full SA team including perfusionist and surgeon to provide support as clinical death was imminent. The timing was excellent as the patient experienced clinical death within 12 hours of the SA team’s arrival.

The patient was subsequently flown to Scottsdale where a neuropreservation was performed. Member A-2420 is now our 87th patient.

Colorado Springs, CO–June 7, 2009
One of our members, A-2061 suffered cardiac arrest at his home in Colorado Springs, CO. The gentleman had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for many years and had 24-hour home health care. At the request of the member and the cooperation of the home health care program, Alcor had pre-positioned a mini-medical support kit with instructions for medical professionals, to administer after pronouncement. In the event of a sudden and unexpected clinical death, these important initial medications could be administered, while simultaneously cooling the body with ice. This would accomplish a key first step in the stabilization process that would provide Alcor additional time to respond to the scene while maintaining the hope for a quality cryopreservation. Since this was the exact scenario that played out, our early efforts paid off.

The home health providers witnessed the member’s arrest and acted quickly. Local paramedics were unable to resuscitate the patient and terminated efforts on scene. The Sheriff’s office was able to assist in expediting the process of pronouncement which allowed the medical assistants and family members to begin Alcor’s initial stabilization protocols. Aaron Drake took an immediate flight to Colorado with the remainder of the needed stabilization equipment. Upon arrival, he met with the funeral home where the patient was being kept in a 34 degree Fahrenheit environment. After completing the remainder of the stabilization in the middle of the night, the patient was packaged and prepped for airline shipment back to Phoenix, which occurred later that same day.

Contacting Prospective Members
Several outreach initiatives are underway. It has been established that a primary source of membership growth is referral by existing Alcor members, so several board directors have begun proactively contacting prospective members. These communications have the side benefit of offering constructive feedback that will help improve the organization. For instance, one of the individuals informed us that the subscription process for Alcor News was not functioning properly. The malfunction has now been resolved.

Communications Committee
Another outreach initiative is the formation of a Communications Committee, also composed largely of board directors. Among other endeavors, committee members will participate in screening or soliciting media opportunities and live speaking engagements, identifying appropriate speakers, developing talking points and encouraging media training.

Team Training
Alcor provided a three-day training course for a team sponsored by Terasem Movement, Inc. (a 501c3 not- for- profit organization). The team, consisting of five personnel who are paramedics/firefighters from Brevard County Fire Department, traveled to the Alcor facility in Scottsdale to tour and learn the field procedures. At the conclusion of their training, they participated in a multi-hour dry run scenario for the team to better understand the flow of the skills they had learned and for Alcor to evaluate the effectiveness of its newly designed training program.

Emergency Response Vehicle
Regarding the planned renovations to Alcor’s emergency response vehicle, we have completed an intensive design and development phase. This consisted of several meetings between Steve Graber and the technical staff, with discussion of parts, vendors and viewing of product samples. Great care has been taken to select modular, off-the-shelf parts, although some custom-designed pieces will be required. Demolition began on the vehicle’s interior this past week and the approved design pieces are being acquired.

Remote Perfusion
Alcor is currently striving to further develop its remote perfusion capability. Before launching an initiative to train its emergency response staff, however, the appropriate equipment needs to be selected.